Giving President Barack Obama his last chance to seat judges in Texas before leaving office in 2017, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing for five nominees for U.S. District Court benches in the state.
Texas currently has the highest number of federal judicial vacancies in the nation, at 12—including two seats on the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Judicial Conference has declared judicial emergencies in all four of the state’s judicial divisions because of the heavy caseload and vacant benches.
